Here are two photos of PC LA I found while searching for an image to go with my Undefeated #10 editorial.
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I just flew back from Spokane, WA this morning. I was prepared to play in the constructed deck Vs. System Pro Circuit qualifier, but had some time to play the sealed PCQ first. With each round only a half hour long, we were able to play all 6 Swiss rounds before cutting to a top 8. I went 4-2, losing round 1 to bad luck (Black Cat crossed my path too many times) and round 5 to tournament winner Jason Kurtzhall. That was good enough to put me in 6th place in the final standings. Before the final 8 draft round, 2nd-place player Peter Sundholm dropped out of the sealed pack PCQ to play constructed, promoting me to 5th place. In the Top 8 draft, I sat to Jason's left. (In case you've never drafted, all you need to know is that it's painful to sit to the left of the best drafter at the table.) At that point, my hope was that I'd get to face him in the final round and take 2nd place. Unfortunately for me, I met Jason in round 2 and got mercilessly beat down 2-0. I learned a few valuable lessons about limited play, earned 2 pro credits and 10 Web of Spider-Man booster packs, and traded like a fiend. The only thing I didn't get to do was play the constructed deck I painstakingly assembled and tested with for the last two weeks!
Undefeated is always looking for new writers, especially ones well versed in today's popular TCGs and miniatures games. If you're interested in writing strategy, review, and preview articles for these kinds of games, send a sample of your published work to undefeated@paizo.com or to: Undefeated
A published sample can be anything from an in-depth messageboard post to a magazine article to a complete work such as a book or game.
Our friends at AEG are so excited about Undefeated #8 that they're currently featuring it on thier main page and their Spycraft page. Check it out.
If Lady Death can get her own animated movie, I think it's not asking too much for a Milk & Cheese animation project. The only concern I would have about such a project would be whether audiences could buy Billy West as the voice of both Milk and Cheese.
Back in Undefeated #1, we reviewed individual miniatures and box sets. It's been a while and we're thinking of doing it again. The question is, how much can we really say about a single figure? Plus, for games like Warhammer 40,000, the stats are already known so, what are we really reviewing? Lastly, is the current review system even set up to handle rating miniatures, or is it too strategy-centric?
This post originally appeared in Ticket to Ride. It has been deleted and put here instead.
No, not Amazing Stories; the cover art for Undefeated #8. It's the box art for the upcoming Champions of Kamigawa set for Magic: The Gathering. This issue should be hitting subscriber's mailboxes over the next week or two and on newsstands not too much later.
One of my favorite parts of planning an issue of Undefeated is working with the team to try to figure out what would make a cool, exciting, and informative topic for ". . . Like a Pro." The one in the works now is about shooting your minis written by James Davis of Privateer Press and the photos look great. Shooting minis is a bit of a departure from the hardcore painting and terrain articles we've featured in past issues, but with the internet becoming more a part of our everyday lives, it's every bit as important. If you read #7's ". . . Like a Pro," then you know that you can enter painting competitions online, and that your photos are all the judges will ever see. So what's next? I've got some crazy ideas (so crazy, in fact, that I'm not sure one person can execute, report on, and photograph what I have in mind). I've seen some awesome figures dremelled and wired with LEDs and have also heard rumors of magnet mods for on-the-fly weapon swapping and articulation. What would some of you like to see?
Sunday, September 12 at Cascade Games in North Seattle. Click here for more info. I'll be there to play, but I'd also be happy to talk shop with any readers and writers in attendance. Hope to catch you there.
My late nights at Gen Con Indy were spent almost exclusively playing Halo on the con's LAN. I whipped butt often enough, but there were few experts (aka teenagers) who just have had infinitely more practice. I definitely ruled the old-enough-to-drink age category. The Xbox highlight for me was being on the 2-man team in a 2-on-7 team slayer match and winning by 10 kills. Interestingly, I ran into more Xbox Live players during work-related meetings and catching up with old friends than I did at the LAN. (I even used my Live tag, PunisherONE, whenever I played and nobody recognized me. Boo-hoo.) Feel free to send me a friends request if you're on Xbox Live. Once 3.0 gets a dashboard, I'll be sure to invite you all to join the Undefeated Magazine squad.
Another highlight of Gen Con Indy was Decipher's massive prelaunch of the Wars TCG, based on the engine created about 10 years ago for the Star Wars CCG. Up unitl recently, it had been called The Mumon Rift Wars, but a last-minute change droped "The Mumon Rift" from the title and replaced it (in the game's logo at least) with the names of the world's 5 factions: Earther, Gongen, Maverick, Shi, and Quay. (Click here for the official Wars TCG site.) I got to sit in on the big presentation Saturday morning, where Decipher gave out decks, T-shirts, a Michael Stackpole short story, and hosted a panel including Stackpole, Quay species designer John Howe, CEO Warren Holland, and Decipherians Ed Garten, Scott Gaetta, and Tom Lischke. The biggest announcement of the event was the Wars tournament scheduled for that afternoon. 205 players showed up (breaking Decipher's record for their largest tournament ever). Decks were limited to 40 cards and could only contain up to 4 copies of the same card. "Where did the cards come from," you ask? Players were allowed to use as many sets of demo decks as they could get their hands to build decks with. Having not read all of the demo cards carefully, I overlooked the obvious Rifleman-Sidearm combo and the relatively powerful Earther-Maverick deck archetype altogether. I still managed to go 4-1 in the first 5 rounds and then dropped after losing the 6th. (I had no chance at top 4, so why bother?) I relied more on my suprisingly still-fresh Star Wars CCG skills than my deck's (lack of) strengths to win two of those games by the slimmest margins. For the completists out there, here's my decklist: Starting Cards (1)
Location (7)
Unit (26)
Interrupt (2)
Asset (4)
If you want to see what I'm talking about, you can download the Wars TCG demo decks here. Enjoy!
The biggest thing at Gen Con Indy was UDE's Vs. Pro Circuit, which occupied nearly half of the TCG hall. Over 200 players turned out for the invitation-only event and they were treated to quite a display of custom sets including a giant Batman statue holding larger-than-life Vs. cards, the original Batmobile from the 1960s TV show, and other coolness. Check out Metagame.com's deep coverage of the event. In other Pro Circuit news, Undefeated revealed its latest contest at Gen Con Indy too: we're giving away 4 Pro Circuit invitations in time for Gen Con So Cal's Pro Circuit tournament, plus gobs of 1st Edition card packs to 16 other entrants. The Grand Prize winner will even get $250 (just as if he or she won a PC Qualifier; how sweet is that?). Look for the contest ad in Undefeated #8 or check it out here. Perhaps most exciting for me, Gen Con Indy was where I found out that I too was on the Vs. PC invite list! (Of course, they spelled my last name wrong, but so do I from time to time.) I don't have all of the details worked out, but I plan to attend. Look for updates here and in the pages of Undefeated.
Okay, I'm back from Gen Con and ready to post. We had a great show. As you can already see by the image on the main Paizo site, the Undefeated Cheerleaders were there. The girls were a hit--I couldn't start a conversation without a mention of them kicking it off. Between manning the Paizo booth and meeting with manufacturers about upcoming products and special promotions, I managed to get a little bit of gaming in. Look for my posts on the TCG message board and in Off-Topic Discussions (follow the links in the sidebar to the left). |